- A Note from the Publisher: All “Hybrid” All the Time!
Hey, everyone …
As I mentioned last week, we’ve recently found ourselves publishing more and more “hybrid” editions — full-size daily email digests for readers of Rational Review News Digest and Freedom News Daily. And I always include one of these notes atop those “hybrid” editions.
It’s become frequent enough now that I’ve decided to just make it “the way things are” — instead of a note like this, EVERY daily email edition will include a one-line notice at the top to let readers know there’s MORE content at our web edition.
Enjoy the new, BIGGER version of the freedom movement’s daily newspaper!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily - US Navy fires commodore of First Naval Construction Regiment
Source: Stars and Stripes [US state media]
“The Navy has relieved the commodore of the First Naval Construction Regiment of his duties, the service said Friday. Capt. Douglas Whimpey, a Navy reservist, was relieved ‘due to loss of confidence in his ability to command.’ The U.S. military routinely cites only a vague ‘loss of confidence’ when removing commanders and other leaders from authority positions. … ‘Navy leaders are expected to uphold the highest standards of responsibility, reliability and leadership personally and professionally, and the Navy holds them accountable when they fall short of those standards,’ the Navy said in a statement.” (01/25/26)
- Power Outages Cascade as Massive Winter Storm Reaches US East Coast
Source: Bloomberg
“A colossal winter storm reached the US East Coast Sunday morning after dropping ice and snow across much of the nation, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power and causing a wave of flight cancellations that may last for days. New England may see up to 18 inches (0.46 meters) of snow through Monday, according to the US Weather Prediction Center, with up to a foot possible in New York City. Some of that snow may fall as sleet, leading to heavy icing on streets and roads. More than 750,000 homes and businesses across the US were without power as of 9 a.m. in New York. The majority are in Texas and Tennessee, where freezing rain has coated power lines and streets in a layer of ice.” (01/25/26)
- Iraq: Dominant political bloc nominates former prime minister al-Maliki as its candidate
Source: ABC News
“Iraq ’s dominant political bloc announced Saturday that it had nominated former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki as its candidate for prime minister. The announcement came after caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, whose bloc won the largest share of seats in November’s parliamentary elections, stepped aside earlier this month. That cleared the field for al-Maliki after the two had competed for the backing of the Coordination Framework, a collection of Shiite parties. Under Iraq’s constitution, a president is elected by the parliament, then names a prime minister, with the premier tasked with forming a new government.” (01/24/26)
- ICE Demonstrates Why We Need the Second Amendment
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“This week, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes warned that her state’s Stand Your Ground law makes confrontations between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and the public potentially dangerous. Mayes, a Democrat, thinks she’s scoring points against the self-defense law while raising a caution to ICE agents, but she’s really underlining a feature of America’s political culture. It’s not Stand Your Ground that puts masked government agents in peril, but this country’s noble history of resistance to overbearing government and the Second Amendment in which that tradition is embodied. … Mayes told 12 News’s Brahm Resnik ‘… we have a Stand Your Ground law that says if you reasonably believe that your life in in danger, and you’re in your house, or your car, or on your property, that you can defend yourself with lethal force.'” (01/23/26)
https://reason.com/2026/01/23/ice-demonstrates-why-we-need-the-second-amendment/
- Ayn Rand, Illegal Immigrant
Source: Notablog
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra“On February 19, 1926, Ayn Rand arrived in the United States from the Soviet Union on a six-month visa to visit her Chicago relatives. She had every intention of remaining in the US permanently. But she knew that US immigration law was highly restrictive. She told officials that she fully intended to return to Russia to marry a man to whom she was engaged. This was a lie. However, given the restrictive immigration laws of the time, Rand’s entrance into the US would have been refused had she not lied about an imminent return to her native country.” (01/23/26)
- Donald Trump’s Board of Piece (of the Action)
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“We’ve already watched Trump knock down billions in new wealth as president, billing taxpayers for use of his own properties and tapping family and friends as proxies for everything from corporate takeovers to insider trading to cryptocurrency scams. Now he’s setting himself up as all-powerful chairman for life of an organization that will handle — and hand out contracts disposing of — untold additional billions in Gaza aid. Guess who will get those contracts? Oh, for the good old days of the Biden family’s mere ‘10% for the Big Guy.'” (01/24/26)
- Nullify the Police State: The People’s Veto to Rein in a Lawless Government
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by John W Whitehead“We are living through a period of open lawlessness at the highest levels of government. Executive orders are issued to sidestep Congress. Federal law enforcement is deployed as a tool of retaliation. Protest is criminalized. Surveillance expands. Due process becomes optional. Courts are packed, ignored, or bypassed. Entire communities are terrorized under the guise of ‘law and order.’ None of this is accidental. And none of it is temporary. … A president is not a monarch, a CEO, or a landlord over the republic. He is an employee — hired by ‘we the people,’ bound by a written contract called the Constitution, and subject to limits he did not write and cannot rewrite. When that employee ignores his limits, only one check remains: the people themselves.” (01/23/26)
- Will Trump’s DHS “Zone Out” the First Amendment?
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Jim Bovard“Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday called for Minneapolis to ‘set up a peaceful protest zone so that these individuals can exercise their First Amendment rights and do so peacefully.’ Since 9/11, ‘free speech zones’ have been one of the biggest constitutional shams around. Both major political parties have used ‘free speech zone’ restrictions to seek to silence dissent.” (01/23/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/will-trumps-dhs-zone-out-the-first-amendment
- Government-Controlled Digital ID is Not the Optional Convenience It Is Being Sold As
Source: Brownstone Institute
by David Thunder“The UK government has pledged to introduce a digital ID system for all UK citizens and legal residents by the end of the current Parliament (so no later than 2029). The integration of digital ID into government services, though already under way, has hitherto been largely voluntary. However, it is becoming steadily less optional, as the government has said it will now be required as a precondition for work in the UK, and a version of it (GOV.UK One Login) is already being imposed unilaterally upon company directors throughout the UK.” (01/25/26)
- Rebuilding two-way trust, city by city
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“A new poll finds 45% of American voters identify as independents, not aligned with either party that dominates politics. That is the highest rate on record for the United States. Voters in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe display a similar neutrality or disinterest. Political polarization, it appears, is contributing to citizens’ party disaffection and thus, potentially, to civic disengagement. The danger of a public that has ‘checked out’ of political interchange, observed American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Samuel Abrams, is that ‘citizens gradually learn the wrong lesson: that withdrawal is safer than participation.’ At the same time, cities around the world (from Mexico City to Montreal, from Boston to Bengaluru, India) are managing to cultivate a feeling of local belonging that fosters civic involvement and trust.” (01/23/25)
- The Bourgeois Are (And Have Been) Building The Kingdom of Heaven
Source: The Findings Substack
by Paul Rosenberg“By the golden rule, humans are primary entities. By the iron rule, nearly all of them are demoted to the role of secondary or derivative entities. And this is made very clear by the fact that enforced hierarchies (states, large corporations and so on) require every occupant of their structure (save a very few at the pinnacle) to relinquish a good deal of their agency, their scope, their cognition, to the larger entity. It’s of great significance then, that humans of the bourgeois model are free agents, and not bound within an enforced hierarchy. These people are almost entirely free to operate via the golden rule, while people within hierarchies are forced to live by the iron rule for large portions of their lives.” (01/24/25)
https://thefindings.substack.com/p/the-bourgeois-are-and-have-been-building
- A Debate on the Transition, or Not, from Law and Politics to Legal Codes as Opportunities for Immoral AI
Source: Isonomia Quarterly
by Jason Morgan“What takes the place of politics, however dirty and corrupt it was, once politics has broken down? This is where my fears show their faces. If it is true that we already live in an age of superintelligent agents, and if those agents are growing more powerful by the day, and if, on a separate track, our politics is broken and getting broken-er and broken-er, then the convergence of the two trends, superintelligence and political dysfunction, seems almost inevitable. What happens next, to my mind, is unpredictable, except that it will surely not redound to the benefit of mankind.” (01/24/26)
- The Magic System Of Zionism
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“If I spoke critically of something abusive that India was doing in Kashmir, would you expect me to be accused of an anti-Hindu hate crime? If you criticized an Indian military operation, would you have to preface it with ‘I don’t hate Hindus or their religion and am not the slightest bit Hinduphobic?’ If there was worldwide opposition to something that Indian military forces were doing, would you expect western governments to start frantically churning out laws to ban that opposition because it was making members of the Hindu community feel unsafe? Would it ever in your wildest imaginings occur to you that a criticism of the violent actions of the government of India could in any way be interpreted as an attack on the Hindu faith and the membership of that religion? You can probably see where I’m going with this.” (01/24/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/01/24/the-magic-system-of-zionism/
- Combatting Overcriminalization: From the Shark House to the White House
Source: Cato Institute
“For centuries, the greatest protection against unjust convictions and punishments was the institution of jury independence, including so-called ‘jury nullification.’ The prosecutions of John Moore and Tanner Mansell illustrate a scenario in which jurors — apprised of their historic injustice-preventing powers — would have rendered a not guilty verdict. But because John and Tanner’s jurors, who appeared desperate for a way to acquit, weren’t informed of their historic prerogative to acquit against the evidence to prevent injustice, they had no option but to convict.” (01/23/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/combatting-overcriminalization-shark-house-white-house
- Who Sits at the Fed’s Table? Part I
Source: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
by David Beckworth & Kaleb Nygaard“This week’s Supreme Court arguments over President Trump’s attempt to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook have put an unusually bright spotlight on a question most people rarely stop to consider: what, exactly, is the Federal Reserve as an institution and how did its internal governance come to look the way it does? While the headlines focus on removal protections and presidential power, the deeper issue is the Fed’s evolving architecture: who sits at the table, who doesn’t, and how those patterns have changed over time.” (01/23/26)
https://macroeconomicpolicynexus.substack.com/p/who-sits-at-the-feds-table-part-i
- American Merchants are Facing a Crew Crisis
Source: Independent Institute
by Caleb Petitt“[T]he U.S. has a severe shortage of merchant marines. The Navy has had to sideline 17 support ships because of the shortage. The decline in merchant mariners has been dramatic: in 1960, there were 50,000, but now there are only 13,000. America needs more sailors and cheaper sailors. Many proposed solutions to the shortage would increase funding, promotion, and recruitment for merchant marine schools. While increased promotion and funding may modestly increase recruitment, they are unlikely to solve the shortage.” (01/23/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/01/23/american-merchants-are-facing-a-crew-crisis/
- Illegal immigration was never an actual problem
Source: Sex and the State
by Cathy Reisenwitz“Who could have predicted that hiring thousands of agents with no background checks, giving them barely any training, sending them into communities where they’re not wanted, and making it extremely clear to them that they would never be held accountable for any violence they perpetrate would lead to them escalating from hurting people with no remorse to increasingly murdering folks, in cold blood, on camera? Indeed, who would have thought that allowing Jonathan Ross to murder Renee Good in broad daylight, on camera, with zero consequences, would have emboldened other ICE officers to murder more innocent people in broad daylight on camera? … I just think it bears repeating, at this time and always, that illegal immigration was never an actual problem. Illegal aliens commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans, on average. They create more jobs and boost native-born wages, on average.” (01/24/26)
https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/illegal-immigration-was-never-an
- Making kids do remote schooling on “snow days” sucks; get off the screens & go touch snow
Source: New York Post
by Kirsten Fleming“The forecast is grim for New York City school kids. On Friday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that, no matter how many inches of the white stuff drop during Sunday’s looming storm, there will be no snow day to start the week. ‘I know to the disappointment of any student that’s watching this right now, Monday is either going to be a remote learning day or it’s going to be an in-person school day,’ Mamdani said on NY1. ‘It’s not going to be a traditional snow day. That is a determination we’ve made.’ Give these kids a damn break. Remote learning — a horrifically ineffective holdover from the Covid lockdown era — has essentially wiped out the glorious snow day, a rite of passage for so many American kids, including right here in the Northeast.” (01/23/25)
https://nypost.com/2026/01/23/opinion/making-kids-do-remote-schooling-on-snow-days-sucks/
- The Chris Spangle Show, 01/24/26
Source: We Are Libertarians
“Snowpocalypse and ICE murders again in Minneapolis.” (01/24/26)
https://www.chrisspangle.com/p/wal-snowpocalypse-and-ice-murders
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 410
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Dale in El Salvador from ‘Milei_in_English’ channel.” (01/25/26)
https://rumble.com/v74tgli-ff-410-dale-in-el-salvador-from-milei-in-english-channel.html
- Bulwark Takes, 01/24/26
Source: The Bulwark
“MN Shooting Victim IDed, New Video of Incident.” (01/24/26)
- Neon Liberalism, episode 61
Source: Liberal Currents
“The State of the Resistance.” (01/24/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/neon-liberalism-61-the-state-of-the-resistance/
- IP … Frequently, episode 317
Source: IP … Frequently
“It’s Giving Federal Consequences.” (01/23/26)
- Unattended Baggage, episode 326
Source: Unattended Baggage
“The ICE/ice age cometh.” (01/24/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-326-the-iceice-age-cometh
- NPR Politics Podcast, 01/23/26
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“Jack Smith defends Trump investigations and Trump backs off Greenland threat.” (01/23/26)